Doodlekit

Don't Let a Little Competition Stop You

Ben Kittrell
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08/14/2009 08:27AM

When you're "The Computer Guy" in your circle of family and friends, you get a lot of requests to help with websites. That's why Heath and I created Doodlekit. That and we realized that the content management systems of the time were way too complicated. While the website builder space was fairly young, there were competitors. This space has grown quite a bit with more competition coming out of the woodwork all the time. Many big hosting companies are builing similar tools and pumping lots of advertising cash into promotion. How do we deal with it? Ignore it.

We aren't defined by our competition, we're defined by our own ideas and our comitment to our customers. We're trying to provide anyone that has access to the web the opportunity to create their own website, regardless of what others are doing.

Everyone wants to find that next big idea and jump onto it before someone else does, but that rarely happens. Most of the time people have a simple idea that comes from their own needs. Many people get discouraged that there's already something on the market like their idea, but why? The only thing that finding competition should tell you is that your idea is viable, since someone else has already made it succesful.

You need to decide, is there enough room in this space for my idea? For example, making a website is the most fundamental concept on the Internet so there's always room for another Website Builder. More choice is always better.

However, if it's a smaller niche space you need to figure out what edge you can provide over the competition. Can you make it cheaper, simpler, faster? Can you provide better customer service? Sometimes just doing less than your competition can make a better product or service that's easier for customers to use.

The most important thing to remember is that if you have an idea, it's worth pursuing. Don't spend your time worry about who's doing what, figure out why you had the thought in the first place and what makes it special.